Articles tagged: Indiana Pacers

Tyreke Evans is arguably the best scoring guard left on the free agent market, and he has drawn interest from several teams. The Indiana Pacers are among those teams, and it sounds like Evans has a decent chance of signing with them.

ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported on Tuesday that Evans has a meeting lined up with the Pacers and there is “interest on both sides to get a deal done.”

Free agent guard Tyreke Evans traveled to meet with the Indiana Pacers today, league sources tell ESPN. There’s interest on both sides to get a deal done, but still work to do on it.

Evans has also been linked to top Western Conference teams like the Golden State Warriors, Oklahoma City Thunder and Los Angeles Lakers, but those teams may not have enough money to sign the 28-year-old if he is looking for a sizable contract.

Evans averaged 19.4 points per game in 52 games with the Memphis Grizzlies last season. That mark was the best since his rookie year.

As Clifton Brown of The Indianapolis Star points out, safety of the players is of the utmost concern in a situation like this. It goes without saying you can’t take the risk of serious injury because of a fall on a wet surface.

They obviously need to be careful with this situation. Imagine ramifications if anyone from #Pacers or #Pelicans suffered injury on wet floor caused by roof leak.

Nothing really makes sense in our world any more. Rookies are playing like ten-year pros, Arthur memes are taking over the planet, and the president is feuding with LaVar Ball. In trying times like these, we need some real and concrete answers about what’s fact and what’s fiction, so let’s start by asking the only question that matters about eight NBA teams that have outperformed expectations to this point of the season: contender or pretender?

Detroit PistonsRecord: 11-5
The Verdict: PRETENDER

It’s difficult to believe going from Kentavious Caldwell-Pope to Avery Bradley and getting slight improvements from the rest of the roster is a viable long-term winning strategy, and that’s probably because it isn’t. As good as Detroit has been, their first 16 games have felt incredibly fluky. Eight of their wins have come by single-digits, and they improved their three-point percentage by over five points from last season despite returning largely the same core. The NBA is fun when bigs like Andre Drummond are rampaging through the competition and dudes like Reggie Jackson and Ish Smith are running circles around everybody. But the Pistons’ own fun may be coming to an end soon.

Philadelphia 76ersRecord: 8-7
The Verdict: CONTENDER

Joel Embiid is better than any horror film out there and is playing like a top-ten guy in the league right now. His brilliance has been largely overshadowing the 18-9-8 stat line that fellow ’90s baby Ben Simmons has been hoisting up. The world is also awakening to how good Robert Covington is at the sport of basketball. JJ Redick is looking like one of the more underrated signings of the summer. Indeed, the Sixers are putting up 109 points per game at the NBA’s fourth-fastest pace, and Markelle Fultz (you know, the No. 1 pick in this year’s draft) is still hurt. It’s Process forever and I will not hear otherwise.

The Indiana Pacers have clarified that they do not intend to take any further action against either the NBA or the Los Angeles Lakers stemming from alleged tampering over Paul George.

In a statement from owner Herb Simon, the Pacers clarified that they were satisfied with the NBA’s investigation into the Lakers and are prepared to move on.

“Contrary to a published report, I would like to emphatically state that neither I nor the Indiana Pacers have ever considered any legal action toward the NBA or the Los Angeles Lakers regarding the recent decision and penalty concerning tampering charges,” Simon said in the statement. “We agree with the NBA’s findings and we want to put this issue behind us. Even though the Pacers were put in a tough position, we feel extremely fortunate to end up with two exceptional players in Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis. Their youth and talent, when coupled with our returning players and other players acquired over the summer, offer tremendous promise for our franchise and our fans.”

It’s a bit odd that Simon would once again take the opportunity to defend what the team got for George — a return that has been criticized by many — but he’s clearly eager to move on and get to work. The Lakers, it appears, will ultimately escape with nothing more severe than a fine.

There’s word that other small- and mid-market team officials have reached out to the Pacers and told them, “Good for you. Fight the good fight.”

It’s hard enough for these lesser teams to retain their superstar players or to at least to receive a fair return for them in a trade. If the Lakers did indeed have impermissible contact with George’s camp this offseason (something that the NBA has confirmed they are investigating), it sets a worrisome precedent for mega-market giants to further undermine the league’s working class. Thus, it’s no wonder the Pacers are getting a good amount of sympathy for their cause.

There is that instance of Johnson reacting. There were also these tweets, although there’s no way they’re incriminating. There is also the strong possibility that some things happened behind the scenes that we aren’t aware of.

The Cleveland Cavaliers may be ruing the offseason of 2017 for a very long time.

ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, appearing on The Jump on Tuesday, said that the Cleveland Cavaliers were so close to closing a deal with the Indiana Pacers for Paul George that the player was about to be given the go-ahead to speak to Cavs owner Dan Gilbert.

“It was so close, in fact, that Indiana was about to give permission to Paul George to get on the phone with Dan Gilbert,” Wojnarowski said. “Indiana backed out of it and did the Oklahoma City deal.”

Amazingly, this is, according to reports, not the only deal for a star player that Cleveland almost had but didn’t get done. It doesn’t sound like there has been any lack of effort on Cleveland’s part to get LeBron James some help — but factors both within and beyond their control intervened.